


Maun: When All Sat Silent

by Sairandhri



Category: Mahabharat, Mahabharata - Vyasa, महाभारत | Mahabharat (TV 2013)
Genre: Cheerharan, Gen, curse, disrobing, draupadi - Freeform, mahabharat - Freeform, sabha parva, vastraharan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-18 23:57:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sairandhri/pseuds/Sairandhri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"They say that the cry of a woman is enough to quake the world’s dimensions. It calls Gods. It causes battles.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Today it spits at their twisted dharm. Today it debases rules and traditions. Today it carves an episode in History."</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> <br/>An interpretation of the Draupadi Cheerharan (Sabha Parva, Mahabharat), from chiefly Draupadi's perspective. This has flowed straight from my heart, and is a result of the reverence I have for this lady.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maun: When All Sat Silent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phandomoftheowl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phandomoftheowl/gifts).



Just as she is getting ready for her bath, the first call comes. Hideous laughter follows.  
She reels around, clutching her dignity to her bosom. Lust echoes through the hallways.

She runs.

She stumbles through the curtains, barely holding herself together. _No man is allowed in here. No man, no monster._ Her veins swell with distress; her anxiety breaks out in sweat.

Her breath catches as a hand closes in her hair.

 _Her hair._ Her hair that have been sanctified. Her hair that her husbands have caressed so carefully, even in fits of passion. Her hair that her maids have braided so skilfully, everyday, remarking through giggles, how curly they are, how enviable, how coveted.

Today, her hair become her leash.

She is dragged through her own chambers. A Queen’s chambers.

She trembles, and falters. She twists, and bends.  
She pleads, she prays. She threatens, she curses.

Her nails claw, her fists pound.  
Her legs thrash, her throat splits into screams that echo rawly off the walls.

Today she realizes how physically fragile she is.

But they whose ears ring with conceit, are deaf to the imprecations of the fragile. They are blind to blights, and to their impending falls. Their heads are held high, too high. They forget that skies overhead do not reflect cliffs underfeet.

Such men stack their own pyres.

She hits the Sabha chaukhat and scrapes her palms. Her fingers splay too close to the dwarpaal’s shoes. Her pallu clings to her shoulder.

Her eyes look up in search of the other five pairs. Foreign hungry gazes meet hers. _I am a sparrow locked in the leers of snakes._ The down on her forearms bristles when she sees her husbands kneeling in the servants’ corner. Dread pricks her guts.

Then, as the pieces fall into place, anger fevers her tongue.

 _Once again,_ she says, _reason has been lost in the friction of rubbing egos. Foolish, you all are! Useless pawns and deceitful dice do not go well with battle-scarred hands. Arrogant minds have played with naivety, they have ignited dormant vices. The resulting smoke has clouded consciences. The remaining soot has marred reputations. The consequent heat has gone to your heads, and virtue has fled from your hearts!_

She hears angry voices erupt in indignation. How dare a woman speak so! How dare a dasi!

A claw clutches her arm. It hauls her up the carpeted steps to the game platform. It will leave bruises that will pockmark her nightly complexion.

Through the melee of male noise – guffaws and sneers and frustrated sighs – all her senses zero on:

“Ch vasamsi Draupadyash chapya upaahar.”

_“And take off her clothes too.”_

Her eyes widen at the voice.  
Her blood curdles at the command.  
A shard of icy dread explodes in her stomach.

_Nirvastra?_

How, she fails to understand, can such a sin occur in presence and knowledge of strong and wise KuruGurujan? How can their eyes behold such a sight? How can their ears hear her pleas, and sit like men made of clay?

She questions rules and rights. She quotes the shaashtr and the ved.

 _All of you men!_ She bursts, _So smug you are, aren’t you, of your superiority over the softer sex? Justify your beliefs then, answer me!_

She demands her answers, answers no man has. She wonders where their paurush has vanished. She speculates whether the entire purushvarg has built on hollow words and empty claims, their entire prestige for prowess. She has _never_ seen men of weaker will.

Reason has never courted a base mentality. Logic never dwells with arrogance and vanity. Disgusting intentions and virtue do not go hand in hand. Hot-headed baboons cannot be called virile men.

She senses a hand grab at her angvastram.

It is said that the cry of a woman is enough to quake the world’s dimensions. It calls Gods. It causes battles.  
Today, it spits at their twisted dharm. Today, it debases rules and traditions. Today, it carves an episode in History.

 _Dharm. What dharm is it,_ she questions, _that allows exploitation of the weak? What dharm is it that favours cheats and punishes honesty? What dharm is it that accepts silence as action? What kind of dharm, tell me KuruSabha, commands you to sit through adharm? Is this the dharm,_ she asks, _that renders a protected woman without protection? Is this the dharm that all you men are so proud to uphold? Is it this dharm that you have pledged to live your lives by? No? No! Then where is your dharm now? Where is your pride? Why do your arms hang limp, your heads bow low? ___

Silence.

 _Silence!_ She scoffs, _Is quiet all you have? Has silence replaced your astra-shashtra? Is maunta your new aabhushan? Shame on you, all of you! What Kshatriya dharm are you existing by, what laurels are you bringing your ancestors? Your wives would be ashamed of you, your sisters would disown you. Rip the janeu off your shoulders, for it means nothing to you anymore! Break all idols of Durga, destroy temples of Saraswati! Do not try to appease Lakshmi now, lest hypocrisy be your rotting rind!_

__But when, oh when has wickedness ever ceded to persuasion? How can murdered duty be appealed to? Why will the deliberately ignorant listen to wisdom?_ _

__She doubts that the walls of a royal assembly have ever seen such horrors. How they must wonder at the truth in tales of righteousness that men have engraved. How they must record a new level of low in the dark tales of human sins. How they must cringe at the curse of a woman. It cannot be pleasant to witness._ _

Spinning helplessly, she twists her ankle, but she does not feel the pain. This is no time for corporeal agony. She has to be a savior. Her own savior. _All_ others have _pathetically_ failed.

In that moment when her worth was disintegrating, she pleads _her_ dharm to save her. Has she not carried out with patience, every duty tied to her? Has she not shown strength enough already, to be deemed as powerful as any man? Is her own will power and self-respect not enough to protect her today? If _she_ fails _today_ , there will be no hope for the coming times: duty will command no value, women will have no worth. 

__She envisions in her mind, her only true need. With desperate expectation and bending ego, she calls out to the Elements, and their Master. She manifests with her own energy, a lajjapat for herself, and the Preserver preserves her honour._ _

__For where does God dwell, but in our own selves? What is that energy, but our own resolve? How would faith be powerful, but for our own belief?_ _

__She wakes from her trance to see her exhausted perpetrators._ _

__Frustration has left in its wake, exasperated disappointment, and seething anger._ _

__The visage famed for ravishing beauty is an abode of wrath. The eyes burn with rage. The hands curl with fury. She is not a body now, she is a spark. She is a spark that nothing but blood can snuff._ _

__She knows she ought to be like the flowers under her feet: forever forgiving with fragrance. But who is there to impart pardon? The frail bud of selfless magnanimity is dead in her. It wilted at the foreign touch. From the crown of her head to the soles of her feet, she belongs to no one but herself. She owes to none but her faith. She relishes the wrathful fire consuming her._ _

__As anger burns through her, she exudes the stink of charring lotuses._ _

__She vows to not tie her mane till she washes it with the same blood that flowed through the hands that corrupted her hair. She vows vengeance for her insult and her husbands’ humiliation. She promises punishment for cheat and deceit._ _

__A cacophony of omens erupts around her: predicting the upcoming destruction. A warning too late. A premonition written in stone._ _

_“History will write today in flames that will glow through to infinity and beyond, reminding men through times of arrogance, and women through times of infirmity, that the Feminine is not to be disrespected. And those who dare to play with her dignity must pay the price._

_Let the lessons imparted henceforth include warnings. Let men learn to awe at the grace of their wives, and the sacrifice of their mothers. Let men value their sisters, and cherish their daughters. And let no woman feel her soul shackled by patriarchal laws_. 

_As my honour has burnt today, so you shall burn. All shall burn. An empire, a clan. An entire lineage shall perish, leaving charred bones and dark ashes._

_And I, I Draupadi of Panchaal, Agnijyotsna born of fire,_

_I will make sure that all remember.”_

**Author's Note:**

> You can find Anushree at her blog on tumblr: [nirantar|tumblr](http://nirantar.tumblr.com/).  
> Edit: Slight additions made on 29th April, 2014.


End file.
